


A Name for Desire

by DominasCyren (CyrenKnight)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Asphyxiation, Choking, Foreplay, M/M, Minor Richard Gansey III/Ronan Lynch, minor pet play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 12:10:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19723411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyrenKnight/pseuds/DominasCyren
Summary: Adam would hold his breath. He’d rather die than let Gansey think he needed anything from him. He would rather die than be a charity case. He would rather die than have to listen to the exhale that came out of him when Gansey would pull away.





	A Name for Desire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [w0lftails (bluebear)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebear/gifts).



> a late birthday present for a fantastically tentacled artist!

Adam would hold his breath. He’d rather die than let Gansey think he needed anything from him. He would rather die than be a charity case. He would rather die than have to listen to the exhale that came out of him when Gansey would pull away.

Calloused fingers to Adam’s jaw line, dropping away only to linger at his collar bone, and then it was over. And then Adam had to remind himself he was alive, he was present in the moment, and that he had painfully let Gansey go again. Passing moments in the dark, when Gansey would offer. When it could be remembered like the wrinkles in heatwaves, an illusion, not real.

Adam wanted to bite him.

But biting would be too much like Ronan, and he’d heard enough of the whispers when they were in high school about dogs and their masters. Adam was no dog, Adam was no thing with a collar. Adam belonged to no one. He wondered if Gansey was disappointed every time he rejected him. Or maybe he kept trying because silence wasn’t an answer.

Gansey was the type to like clear, concise answers and defined and everlasting lines between them. Even with his magic, he wanted to know where it came from and how to compare it to other things to explain it. And now, Adam was riddled with magic. Adam was a case study, Adam was his friend, Adam had always rejected the offer to be something more.

Adam wondered if that was just how Gansey was or if all people raised like Gansey were like him. Adam was like a curiosity in a jar and he’d felt entitled to open it. _Drink me_ , had been forcibly written over the warning labels of the bottle and Gansey could afford to hospitalize himself when the consequences came.

It was frustrating. It was invasive. It was exhilarating.

Adam never had to go too long without another offer being made, without another moment folded gently between the few layers of dark in the summer. The AC was broken. There was some sort of cheap excuse for a fan Ronan had fixed up. Gansey had offered again, his shirt clinging to his sweat drenched back.

Adam was sure if he’d breath, the fan would break and Gansey would hear him. He felt Gansey could always hear him anyway. Ronan had dreamed the fan just to break the moment Adam would breathe, he was sure of it.

Ronan had told him being with Gansey wasn’t so bad. He’d been honest about it, his back to Adam when he’d brought it up all on his own. Ronan knew about Gansey and his offers, like some sort of fae-thing. Ronan said he was good at it. Ronan said Gansey was ever eager to please. It was seared into him, nested right next to the white blood cells that kept him going. Ronan promised Adam he’d enjoy it and would never have to talk about it if he didn’t want to. Adam told him he didn’t know what Ronan was talking about, so Ronan had dropped it.

There were fingers to his throat, the fan still going.

“...Is this an alright moment to kiss you?” The question he never answered left Gansey again. Like a wax seal or a promise, but Adam was scared of the contents and scared of breaking things like his father. He was scared if he said yes, everything would unravel and he wouldn’t know how to put cut strings back together again.

But part of him knew this was all a game, a desperate kind of foreplay. Adam liked the looks across the room that stretched like noon-shadows on pavement. Adam liked knowing the taste of mint was bitter and that Gansey enjoyed that flavor on his tongue. Adam liked that Gansey would corner him in an open room and ask if Adam wanted to be split open with affection and bleed out in his bed.

Adam liked that he was allowed to not have to make a choice. _No you can’t ever stop being trailer trash. Yes you got into Aglionby. No you can’t ever stop being a disappointment. Yes you were already something Gansey wanted, even before the magic._

Fingers lingered on his sternum and Gansey had pulled away. Adam measured how long it took him in heartbeats rather than seconds. Adam would never stay after his offers. Adam would go home, turn on the shower and not get in until he was done with himself and the thought of Gansey. It made him feel delirious. He could only leave himself to Gansey’s mercy in fantasy, for reality was much more complicated.

It took him a long time to realize what Gansey’s type was. He didn’t see how he and Ronan were similar. Blood-bruises and glass-cuts were different kinds of violent. Bite wounds and claw marks were different kinds of ways to draw blood. Cars and beds were different kinds of eager.

But Ronan liked Gansey. Adam liked Gansey. That was all it took because Gansey didn’t like Gansey. So anyone who liked him was welcomed because he was still trying to understand why someone would do something like that. He wasn’t the kind of person who’s ego could be held in someone’s hand and stroked until they could get something from him. Flattery to Gansey was a fleeting concept, a bird in the winter. So genuine interest was something that Gansey liked and was eager to reciprocate.

Adam didn’t think it was fair someone like Gansey could hate himself. He was the kind of person who shouldn’t have the capacity and it made Adam want to strangle him. It made him want to press his fingers into his flesh and watch him bruise and whimper and watch his body swell with tears and cum from distress.

And it scared him.

So it made him think he deserved it instead and it made his toes curl and then it made his stomach churn. The difference between his father and his fantasy of Gansey was sometimes too much and left him bloated, yet hollowed out. There was nothing to fill the space, so he collected as much nothing as he could. Silence was a nothing sort of thing that was easy to get.

Gansey never let Adam go too long without the question being posed again. It reminded Adam he was wanted. It reminded Adam he always had a choice. It reminded Adam the AC was still broken and it was too hot to have Gansey’s knee pressed between his thighs like this.

Maybe if he said yes, their skin would melt together and he’d become a little less Adam and a lot more Gansey. But Adam still had a hard time understanding the difference between becoming someone else and letting someone else take over.

Fingers brushed his lips, splayed over his shoulder. “Is this an alright moment to kiss you, Adam?” 

There was no rise and fall of his chest, no grandeur that came with his magic and no normalcy after their adventures. Adam was still unfortunately himself, even in the heat, even with Gansey pressed this close to him.

Adam wanted to bite him.

Adam wondered if Gansey would ever get tired of playing such a morose game. It couldn’t have been at all fun when he could play whatever he liked with Ronan. Or maybe Ronan had his limitations too.

“...Do you do this with Ronan?” Adam had just broken something. He wasn’t sure what, but that was the first time he’d given a different response. All of his nothing sort of things left him and he realized how desperately and immediately he wanted something to replace it. He wanted it back. He wanted to take it back, his words and his nothing-thing.

Gansey only seemed a little surprised, but it was more a curiosity than him being taken aback. “...No,” he answered, leaning close enough to brush his nose against Adam’s. “This is just something for you and me.” Adam was sure it was meant to be reassurance, but it felt more like something that could be taken away. He wanted it back.

But if he couldn’t have it back, this would have to do. He curled his fingers into Gansey’s soaked shirt, hiding his face in his shoulder to avoid being kissed. Adam inhaled, which wasn’t his typical exhale. He’d ruined everything.

“You okay, Adam?” A question, a nothing-thing anwer. Gansey tucked half of himself under Adam, half of Adam resting on Gansey. Gansey put his fingers in his hair, mouth pressed against his scalp, arm holding his waist. Adam locked his arm around Gansey’s.

“...I don’t know.” Everything had been the same, the way it always was. But that wasn’t right because Gansey was far flung from normal, wasn’t he? Or maybe Adam was looking for any sort of excuse to make himself anxious, craving the trauma because he was scared to find out who he was outside of it. Or maybe his question had been an answer. He wasn’t Ronan, he knew that. But he didn’t want to become a part of a collection either.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Gansey’s leg rubbed against both of Adam’s and he pressed his tongue to his teeth, wondering what it would feel like to roll his hip against his knee. Maybe Ronan liked sex with Gansey because it was a carefully constructed destruction of self. It was something you could repeat without lasting harm.

“...I don’t know.” But letting someone else break him was terrifying. He knew, logically, Gansey would put him back together if he was the reason Adam fell apart. But the thought was too cruel, too awful, too much of something he’d done over and over and over already. Adam twisted out of Gansey’s hold, sitting on his hips. “...It’s hot.”

“Mush brain?” Gansey asked, reaching up to hold the side of his face.

“...Would you be gentle?” He was asking. He shouldn’t be asking. He should bloat himself back up with unsurety and nothingness. Gansey gave him a muted version of his million dollar smile. Adam wondered if it was the conversation or himself that wasn’t worthy of a genuine one.

“If you wanted me to be.”

“Would you be mean?” The questions kept pouring out of him like an upturned ink well, but it also felt like something had snapped and splattered him everywhere like water balloon. Was it possible to leak two different ways at once?

“Within reason.”

“Would you let me be mean?”

“If you so desired.” What a capricious word to choose. Would Gansey get nervous over something like this or was it just Adam? Was Gansey too practiced? Was Gansey able to keep himself too well managed? Adam lowered himself back against Gansey, cheek to breast bone to hear his heart.

“...If I didn’t want to do anything at all?” Fingers trailed down his spine, Adam’s body desperate to lean into it. He resisted.

“Then I’d just have to wait and ask again later, wouldn’t I?” Adam felt himself relax. They could go back to what they were doing before. This conversation didn’t need to happen in his memory. It could be left to rot or rust or collect cobwebs or whatever it was memories did when unattended to.

“I want that… please.” His voice was muffled by his shirt and the heat and the thrumming of Gansey’s heart. Gansey hummed and the sound was like being heard from inside of a cocoon. The change could be gradual or he could die inside and everything would be the same forever.

“...Thank you, Gansey.” His name was a precious thing, invoking safety Adam was still adjusting to. Gradually, accumulating moments, he was sure at some point he could bring himself to lay on Gansey like this without the repertoire of their usual game.

“Of course, kitten.”

Adam’s head jerked up. He’d been so busy considering his place like Ronan’s that he hadn’t stopped to realize it might have been completely different. Cats were particular, passive, and anyone who’d expected their behavior to match that of dogs was sorely disappointed. But Gansey wasn’t expecting him to behave like a dog.

Adam studied his face and Gansey patiently, expectantly, waited for him to respond in turn. Adam didn’t have to. He didn’t owe Gansey a response. “...You’re too hot for this.” Adam pulled away from Gansey, who just laughed and let him leave. He felt like he was proving Gansey’s point.

“...I got accepted into the study abroad program I applied to.” Adam stopped in the doorway at Gansey's words. It wasn't unexpected, but it still had to happen at some point. “I was going to tell everyone when we went for lunch tomorrow.” There was a reason Gansey was telling him now that Adam didn't want to consider. He could ask how long he would be gone. He could go back to pressing himself up against Gansey. He could let Gansey kiss him. Adam didn't say anything. It was too hot to say anything.

* * *

Adam had uselessly tried to unfold every stolen moment he'd had with Gansey while he was away. They blurred together, a wash, no substitute for the real thing. Gansey had been strategic with how he carefully timed when he'd ask again. It was just long enough to make Adam consider an answer, but just close enough to the last to make it feel habitual.

_Kisses to the back of his neck and his spine._

Time felt sticky, like the drawn out hour before dawn broke and before the night collapsed in on itself. That was the hour Adam kept waking up to and the one that haunted him all day. Gansey was gone. Gansey was away. Ronan was irritable. Adam wondered if everyone considered him to also be irritable. Adam had wondered when he'd become so codependent on Gandey's presence to lift his mood. He tried to pin a date on it, but exacts were fragile like butterfly wings and Adam couldn't seem to do it.

_His fingers tracing the length of each of his ribs, as if to promise and prove he wasn't broken._

He kept his yearning to himself. Telling any of his friends wouldn't make it easier on him, even if Ronan could offer understanding—that and reminders. Ronan waited, while Adam would check in. Ronan had a place to be to wait for him, Adam would glance at an opportunity to go by their place and deny himself the agony. He didn't understand why calling Gansey, texting him, seeing videos and snapchats weren't enough. When had he come to craved him? When had he become so spoiled with his constants?

_The sheets straining and gripped in his fists._

Kitten. The word bounced around in his head, bruising. Kitten, kitten, kitten. When had Gansey decided on that? Had he always viewed Adam like that? A stray in a neat little compartmentalized box? Adam was just being cruel because he missed him and missing him caused him pain, so he was trying to make the fantasy of Gansey guilty, that was all. But the fantasy of him forgave him, left fingerprints on his hips and called him names that made his toes curl when he couldn't go back to sleep during those drawn out hours.

_The hot press into him with the sticky heat and his own keening moan._

Adam thought having sex with Gansey before he left would make him miss him less. There was more to replay, more to pause and rewind with. It wouldn't melt together and poison him with a touch like mercury, like the fleeting silence and almosts that he'd only experienced. The sex was supposed to make him miss Gansey less.

_He felt his limbs go cold, all of his blood settling in the base of his spine to give Gansey something to press into again and again and again and—and—!_

He'd never asked when he was supposed to be back. Maybe he should have or should right now, but the thought of seeing the Pig back in his driveway delighted him too much. Would he greet Ronan and his bed first? Would he tell everyone he was back first? Would he be able to tell by how Adam would react to him that he'd craved him in his absence?

_It was too warm, Gansey was warmer, and Adam was stuck between the layers of sweat and sheets._

Would he ask permission to kiss him again or would his hands grip his shoulder from behind and press right over his heart again to steal his pulse first? Would Adam forget how to breathe or would he hold his breath? He missed Gansey. He entertained the idea of Gansey surprising him at work. It was embarrassing. It was childish. It wasn't something he'd never admit to. Adam was sure at this point, he wanted nothing more than to be held and coddled. Anything more could wait. 

_Gansey's fingers gently pressed his heart back into his chest, letting it thrum away in the after._

Class, work, sleep, no Gansey. Class, work, sleep _no Gansey_. He couldn't do it. He didn't know how he did it before, but perhaps before he wasn't who he was now. He'd changed drastically, so it was understandable that his needs had changed. He was just confused as to why Gansey was now a need.

_"Good… You're so good, Adam."_

Maybe it had been when Gansey had stopped trying to offer him anything but validation and praise. _Damn_ , the praise. Just the memory of it coupled with being over sensitive from denying himself was enough sometimes. He'd only started denying himself since Gansey had left, or rather he hadn't been reminded of how often he wanted to since he'd left. Adam wasn't sure what to do with himself anymore. He just knew his lies were no longer substantial. Nothing-things wouldn't cut it once Gansey was back.


End file.
